


Justice (AU)

by Detownley



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-05 21:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16375292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detownley/pseuds/Detownley
Summary: After a war comes what is arguably the most difficult part: recovery. And a big part of that recovery - for both the deputies and Hope County residents alike - is justice. Jacob Seed and John Seed - exactly 1 half of the guilty party - must stand trial and face the consequences for what they’ve done. After being promoted to the position of sheriff, the former Deputy (reader) must now guide their recovering friends through the difficulties that a very public trial brings about; all whilst reliving the horrors of what they faced in that small county in Montana.





	1. Trial: Day 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of the Seed Trial and the former Deputy must brave the crowds in the courthouse; as well as the Seed brothers themselves.

You make your way through the hall of the courthouse, your shoes clicking against the polished marble floor as you walk. Today is the first day of the Seed trial, where John Seed and Jacob Seed will be put in front of a jury. That jury will be the first anyone outside of Hope County has heard of the atrocities that the Seeds committed; finally, after almost a decade of suffering and isolation, the outside world will know what the citizens of Hope County have endured.  
To say you’re nervous is an understatement. Quite frankly, you’re shitting bricks. You’d only been a rookie for a grand total of 8 months before you swooped into Hope County in that goddamn helicopter. You’d only just been cleared to have a firearm at the time and never in your wildest dreams did you think that you’d be using anytime soon. But you did. And that guilt consumes you to this day – following you around like a thick, black fog, looming over your head. You’ll carry that body count with you until your dying day; some weighing heavier than others, but all of them burdening you to a great extent.  
Among those who’re testifying – including yourself, of course – are Hudson and Pratt, who are waiting in the corridor outside the courtroom, dressed up in their best suits and shaking violently with nerves.  
You head directly towards them, passing by the door to the courtroom and joining their huddle. “What’re you guys doin’ here? You’re not on the stand today, are you?”  
“No,” Hudson replies. “We came to wait outside. We didn’t wanna be at home while everyone was here. We’re not allowed in the courtroom until we’ve testified, but we wanted to feel like we were doin’ somethin’, y’know?”  
“Yeah, I get that,” you tell her. Hudson pinches the bridge of her nose and begins to cry. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” you assure her, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “You’re both gonna do great.”  
“I dunno,” Hudson whimpers. “I don’t know if I can take the stand. I don’t know if I can face John again.”  
You rub her shoulder. “Yes, you can,” you tell her. “You _both_ can,” you add, turning to look at Pratt. He’s extremely pale and looks as though he may vomit at any second. “How’re you holdin’ up, Pratt? You ain’t gonna puke on my nice, new shoes, are ya?”  
Pratt gives a weak smile and quickly shakes his head. “I’m g - good, I’m good.”  
“Are you gonna be here all the way through?” Hudson asks you. “I _definitely_ can’t do it without you here.”  
“I’m gonna be here for the whole thing; don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”  
Hudson gives a small sigh of relief, dries her eyes, and nods. “Okay.”  
You lean backwards and crane your neck to peek into the courtroom. “Listen, they’ll be starting soon. I gotta go in and find a seat. You’ll be fine, okay?” They nod grimly and you make your way into the courtroom.  
________________________________________  
You politely move through the crowds and find a seat. The jury is already in their seats and the room is bustling with people, all chattering among themselves about the case and what outcome they hope for. Once news got out about Eden’s Gate being a cult, the case had quickly turned into an international one, attracting reporters from all over the world. _If only this many people had cared about Hope County before_ , you think. _Maybe this wouldn’t have happened in the first place._  
You take your seat and fiddle with the collar of your shirt. The number of bodies in the room are making it swelteringly hot and you haven’t been all that good with crowds since returning from Hope County.  
As you look around the room, trying to calm your raging nerves, Earl Whitehorse slides into the seat next to you. He’s wearing a tailored suit and looks a lot more relaxed after his recent vacation to the Bahamas; although you think the next few months will undo that calm demeanour pretty quickly.  
“Congratulations… _sheriff_.” He greets you with a warm smile. “We wouldn’t be here without you, kid. You earned that promotion, that’s for sure.”  
“How’s retirement treatin’ you, Earl?” You smile.  
“Not bad, not bad. I’ve been a little bored, but I’m not gettin’ shot at anymore, so I can’t complain.”  
You chuckle, but your eyes scan the room, nervously; constantly looking for danger that’s never there. “Boredom is a welcomed change after the year we’ve had.”  
“Ain’t that the truth,” he laughs.  
The room falls silent around you and it takes a few seconds before you realise that John and Jacob have entered the room.  
“Oh shit,” Earl mutters, leaning back in his seat. “And so it begins.”  
You stay silent, glaring at John and Jacob as they both search for you in the crowd. The way they hunt for you makes you wonder if they can sense you – maybe even smell you, like a pair of predators sniffing out their prey. It would explain why they always seemed to know where you were back in Hope County. You think of them on all fours, snarling at the woodland creatures in the forests of the Whitetail Mountains and the image makes the corners of your mouth curl up ever so slightly.  
They’re both dressed in swanky suits with silk ties and polished shoes. However, all the fresh haircuts and hot showers in the world wouldn’t be enough to scrub away the look of defeat on their faces as the guard directs them towards their seats at the front of the room. Approaching their table and pulling their chairs out from under it, John pauses and looks directly at you. He nudges Jacob and the two of them stare at you for a moment before being told to sit down. You swallow the hard lump in your throat and shift in your seat.  
“You alright?” Earl asks.  
“I’ll be a lot better when those fuckers are behind bars.”  
“All rise,” a mans voice calls.  
You and Earl rise to your feet, along with the rest of the room. The judge enters the room; a big woman with kind eyes hidden underneath a stern face.  
“That’s Judge Anderson,” Earl whispers. “She’s a nice woman – real fair and always knows when people are talkin’ shit.”  
“That’s handy. Lord knows John and Jacob are gonna be doin’ a lot of that,” you reply.  
The judge takes her seat at the bench and everyone else does the same as two guards close the main doors.  
“Okay,” the judge speaks. “We have a long few weeks ahead of us, so let’s begin with the opening statements. Prosecution, if you please.”  
The prosecutor, Wayne Stevens, stands up and leaves his table, approaching the jury. “Thanks, Your Honour. Members of the jury, we all know that as Americans, we value our freedom. It is the defining feature of our country. However, there are people – people like the Seed family – who want to take that freedom away from us.”  
You glance over to John and Jacob. Jacob watches Stevens carefully as he speaks, whilst John simply shakes his head, looking bemused as to why people would think he was doing anything other than _helping_ people.  
“The men you see before you today wished to control people. They wished to _own_ them. They inflicted harm on the citizens of Hope county, and in doing so, they inflicted harm on the people of America. Over the course of the next few weeks, you will hear troubling accounts from witnesses; not only civilians who were caught up in a whirlwind of bloodshed but also officers of the law who were held and tortured for weeks for simply trying to protect us. These accounts will be difficult to hear, but we have a duty to the people of Hope County to finally hear what they have to say. Those people – those good, honest, hard-working people – deserve justice. It’s our duty, as a nation that values freedom, to give them that justice. Thank you.”  
Stevens returns to his seat and the judge calls for the defence to take her turn addressing the jury.  
“That’s Hazel Warner,” Earl whispers. “She’s young blood, but don’t underestimate her. She’ll go for your throat.”  
“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Hazel Warner and I’m here to represent two innocent men who have been targeted by law enforcement.”  
“Oh, Christ,” you groan, rolling your eyes and sinking into your seat.  
“The prosecution will spin you a story about how these men are violent. Evil. Monsters. But these men were simply lead astray by their brother – the brother, in fact, that the very same officers that you will see in this courtroom _killed_ earlier this year. John and Jacob Seed are honest members of their community.” She gestures towards John and Jacob. “A veteran and a highly skilled lawyer. Both are ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and law enforcement now wishes to punish them for something that they had no say in. That is why, at the end of this trial, we will ask you to deliver the only verdict that makes sense; a not guilty verdict. Thank you.”  
“What a load of shit,” Earl scoffs quietly.  
“You think the jury will buy any of it?” You ask.  
He turns his head to look at you and shrugs. “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”


	2. Trial: Day 4, Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newly appointed sheriff spends the evening enjoying a family dinner with the Rye family, during which, they express their concerns about the trial to Nick and Kim.

“How’re things at the station?” Kim asks from across the Rye family’s dinner table.  
You reach over and poke your fork into one of the beautifully cooked pork sausages that lay on a serving dish in the centre of the table. “It’s okay. They’re a rowdy bunch, but I’m doin’ a pretty good job of keepin’ ‘em under control,” you smile, dumping the sausage onto your plate and going back for another.  
“After what you did here, I’m sure a bunch of overexcited cops ain’t nothin’ you can’t handle,” Nick comments, cramming the latter half of a sausage into his mouth with his hand and sucking his fingers clean. You watch as Kim gives him a mildly disgusted look and shoves a fork into his hand. “I mean, the Seeds were rowdier than any kind of cop I’ve ever met – apart from you, of course. Right, partner?” he laughs loudly, nudging you with his elbow. “I mean, flaying folk alive is the definition of rowdy.”  
“Nick’s right, y’know? None of us would be here if you hadn’t put in the hard work to get us to this point,” Kim says, sincerely.   
“I was just doin’ my job,” you tell them, awkwardly dancing around the compliment as you load a dollop of mashed potatoes onto your plate and sink back down into your seat.  
“And a damn fine job it was, too,” Nick cheers, lifting his beer bottle into the air.  
“Well I wouldn’t have made a single dent in the Seeds’ plans if I didn’t have the help from the residents, so cheers to you guys.” You raise your glass of water and put it to Nicks bottle with a clink; Kim joining in with her glass of red wine and a shake of her head as Nick sloshes beer onto the table next to his plate.  
The three of you tuck into your food, immediately and Nick doesn’t waste a single second before shovelling a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth; perfectly seasoned with a home recipe handed down from Kim’s mother that would definitely win her first place on MasterChef.  
“So, how’s my god-daughter?” You smile, tearing open a warm bread roll.  
“Nicole’s doin’ great,” Nick chirps with his mouth full of potato.   
“Hannah,” Kim corrects him. “We agreed not to call her by her middle name, Nick.” She sighs as she says it, but the corners of her lips are curled into a smile.  
You grin down at your plate, shaking your head as Nick objects. “Nicole is a great name, Kim. I don’t know why you can’t give it a chance.”  
“Because we already have one Nick in the family and one of you is way more than enough,” Kim chuckles.   
Nick blinks at her for a few moments before letting it go. You can practically see hearts in his eyes as he watches her smile into her wine glass and you’d feel like you were intruding on something if you weren’t busy feeling so honoured to have witnessed a display of such raw, deep-seeded love.  
“Anyway, baby’s crawlin’, now so everythin’s gotta be kept outta reach,” Nick informs you. “I’ll take you upstairs to see her after dinner.”  
“That’s if she’s still asleep by then,” you remark.  
“I hate to be a party-pooper, but there’s a pretty big elephant in the room that we haven’t addressed yet,” Kim states, placing her fork on her plate and reaching for her wine glass again. You already know the subject that she’s going to bring up and you follow her lead, taking a sip of your drink to prepare yourself for the discussion. “How’s the trial going so far?” she asks.  
You swallow the sip of water down and set your glass on the table with a sigh. “It’s okay, I guess. Not much has happened yet. Just a few civilians recounting their various experiences with John and Jacob. The hard-hittin’ stuff is yet to come, I’m sure.”  
“You seen them yet? The Seeds, I mean.”  
“Yeah. They’re looking hard-done-by as ever. I dunno,” you sigh. “They just look around the room like this is all some huge injustice. Like I just plucked them from their home and put them in the town stocks for something they didn’t do. And they believe it, too, I think. It’s not just some act that they’re putting on for the public; they truly believe they’re innocent. Sometimes, when I see them looking back at me like that through the crowd, it’s just hard to remember what they did to people. Hard not to feel guilty. But the lives they ruined, the people they hurt – that was real. I just have to keep telling myself that, I guess.”  
“Listen,” Kim starts, leaning forward in her seat. “After what Jacob did to you up North – all the mind games – of course it’s gonna be tough to know what’s real and what’s not, sometimes. But this _isn’t_ an injustice, sheriff. Those men are not the victims and you did the right thing by putting them in that courtroom. They deserve this. Every bit of it. And this county is with you all the way.” She reaches out and holds Nick’s hand across the table and Nick does the same with yours.  
“If you ever need reassurance, partner, then we’re right here whenever you need us,” Nick says. You nod your head solemnly, and the three of you let go of each other’s hands and continue eating. “Anyway, I’m comin’ along next week to watch you take the stand,” Nick says, sipping his beer. “You gonna be sayin’ anythin’ that I ain’t gonna wanna listen to?”  
“Depends,” you shrug, running your finger through the condensation on the side of your glass of water. “I’ll mostly be goin’ through what happened in Joseph’s compound, probably, but there’s also a high probability of them askin’ me about what each of the brothers did to me. It might get a little…”  
“Grim?” Nick asks.  
“Yeah… Grim’s a good word for it.”  
\----------  
Nick leans back in his chair and stifles a burp. “Well, I’m as stuffed as a hooker on a busy –“  
“Ooookay,” Kim interrupts, standing up and beginning to gather the dishes from the table.  
You share a chuckle with Nick as Kim reaches over and picks up his plate. It’s completely clean without a speck of food left on it; in fact, you’re sure there was a pretty pattern painted on the plate before Nick licked it all off.  
You rise to your feet and start piling your cutlery onto your empty plate. “Here, let me –“  
“No, no,” Kim insists. “I’ve got this. You two go up and check on the baby,” she smiles.  
You hand her your plate and Nick gets up, tucking his chair under the table and whisking his beer bottle away just before Kim picks it up. Finishing the bottle off with one gulp, he places the bottle onto the stack of plates in Kim’s arms and gives her a kiss on the cheek before leading the way to the staircase.  
\----------  
“She’s even more beautiful than she was the last time you saw her, ain’t she?” Nick whispers as the two of you stand over the cot, watching the sleeping baby. She’s sprawled out with both arms raised above her head and she wears a pale yellow sleepsuit with little red airplanes on it. Your heart swoons as she stirs, letting out a soft gurgle as she stretches her tiny legs; her little toes curling inside the soft fabric of the sleepsuit.  
“She so amazing,” you tell him; a huge, excited grin plastered across your face. “And she still smells so good.”  
“I know, right? I sometimes use baby powder on myself so that I can smell like her,” Nick confesses.  
You give him a puzzled look, but he doesn’t notice. He’s too busy gazing down at his baby; watching her with the proudest look on his face. Nick has always been a kind man – always willing to bend over backwards for anyone who needed it – but his kindness towards strangers, or even towards you, hadn’t even come close to the level of kindness that he shows the child in front of you. There’s no doubt about it; Nick Rye was born to be a father. And in the quiet of the nursery, with the mobile singing a sweet little melody, you find yourself thinking of the of the Seed brothers. You think of them getting off the hook. You think of them one day coming back here, to Hope County – like you know they would if they were set free – and spoiling this peaceful life that Nick fought so hard for, for his baby. The thought of this child being in danger makes your blood boil. It terrifies you, and as if you ever needed any more proof, you know that the Seed’s have to pay for what they did here.   
And you know that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to make sure they have no chance of ever coming back.


End file.
